On Monday I posted about an amazing dining experience at a Chinese restaurant in Butte Montana, and a wonderful dinner cooked by a Chinese friend in Madison Wisconsin. Today I'm posting pictures from a memorable dinner cooked for us last spring by one of my husband's doctoral students, who also happens to be Chinese. A couple of the dishes were Western in nature, but with a Chinese twist, except maybe for the elegant dessert. But never having been to China, what do I know.
We started with an outrageously colorful salad. Then came a stunning assortment of vegetable dishes, all of which were vegan.
There was tofu in a fragrant and delicious sauce.
Delicate snow peas.
Fresh asparagus.
Yuba with wood ear, (also known as black fungus or tree ear), mushrooms and peanuts. And maybe other things that I'm not remembering.
A giant bowl of oyster mushrooms, which I loved, and a bowl of okra, which you can see peeking from behind the mushroom dish. Apparently it didn't get its own photo.
And a most elegant poached pear with blueberries and raspberries for dessert. I didn't bring my camera, because although I've become somewhat accustomed to feeling a little odd taking food photos in restaurants, I still feel way too weird showing up at the home of someone I don't know, and proceeding to photograph all the food on the table. It turned out I needn't have worried in this case. The hostess already knew about the blog and was perfectly happy to have me take photos. Too bad I had to take them with my phone, but you get the picture, so to speak.
